On a cool and very windy Saturday, Fran and I walked from Cardiff to Solana Beach and back. Our regular walk was rerouted due to the street fair in Encinitas. It was extremely windy, and there was lots of white water in a small area of Cardiff. The waves were challenging, and with the high winds, the surf was just right for kite surfing.
What is kite surfing you may ask? It looks like a cross between snowboarding (the board looks like a snowboard)and surfing, with the addition of a kite to propel you. A precursor to this sport was parachute skiing. Many of the early forms of surfing with the help of a kite were designed by engineers in America
, Germany and New Zealand. It wasn't until 1997 that the Legaignoux brothers of France developed and sold the breakthrough "Wipika" kite design which used inflatable tubes. The above picture is of a surfer inflating his kite. Legaignoux continues to improve the kite design to this day.
It was a perfect day for kite surfing, yet we saw only about a dozen brave souls in the water. I think it is a very difficult sport, one that requires a lot of strength, balance and agility. Extraordinary speed can be attained too, with the record being 93 km per hour. I saw guys doing snowboard like tricks in the surf. They were amazing. I think I'm past the age to even trying an extreme sport like this. I'll just stick to boogie boarding. It suits me just fine.
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